Brownies

A recipe for brownies

WHOSE MODEL STUDENT? LEARNER-CENTERED DISCOURSE AND THE POST-SECONDARY PRIVATIZATION AGENDA

Using discourse analysis, the author identifies contradictions in privatization discourse in order to highlight how state-based educational reform has used a normative language of student interests to fundamentally redefine the nature of the university’s mission and its faculty based governance structures. The author proposes a counter-discourse that creates broader discursive forums for those who view the university as a public and democratic intellectual space. A primary aim is to create affinity identities in which the social and moral agency of faculty and students is recognized and used to challenge the ongoing disruptive corporatization agenda in higher education.

Integrating Women\u27s Voices into Public Policy

Women are Minnesota\u27s greatest untapped resource. Despite significant growth in the visibility of women in public life, the talents and contributions of Minnesota\u27s female citizens are not yet being fully utilized. In this last decade of the century, the state faces policy challenges in human services, the environment, the economy. To most effectively meet these challenges, we need to find ways to integrate women\u27s voices more fully into public policy. Meeting this challenge is in everyone\u27s interest for several reasons. For one thing, it will make our public endeavors more equitable. Any society that makes decisions for all based on the experiences of a minority (white males, by and large Minnesota\u27s decision-makers, constitute about 47 percent of the state\u27s population) is depriving itself of a critical data base that would enrich those decisions. It is human nature to notice and respond to what you have personally experienced, and even well-meaning men may overlook implications of decisions they make for the lives of women or children. Further, because women don\u27t have the same investment in the system as those who have always viewed themselves heirs to its rewards, they may be able to see and articulate new ways to frame ideas, new approaches to implementing these ideas, new standards for measuring their success. An infusion of women\u27s voices and perspectives into the various decision-making bodies and processes of our state is important for another reason, too: It promises greater possibility for transforming and enriching our public policy. Women will bring perceptions and priorities to the public arena that are missing or muted now. Integrating what are generally seen as female values, such as nurturance and cooperation, into our public policy and our cultural norms increases chances for a more respectful, equitable, and humane society for all

PROTEIN SUPPRESSION OF FLAVIN SEMIQUINONE AS A MECHANISTICALLY IMPORTANT CONTROL OF REACTIVITY: A STUDY COMPARING FLAVOENZYMES WHICH DIFFER IN REDOX PROPERTIES, SUBSTRATES, AND ABILITY TO BIFURCATE ELECTRONS

A growing number of flavoprotein systems have been observed to bifurcate pairs of electrons. Flavin-based electron bifurcation (FBEB) results in products with greater reducing power than that of the reactants with less reducing power. Highly reducing electrons at low reduction midpoint potential are required for life processes of both aerobic and anaerobic metabolic processes. For electron bifurcation to function, the semiquinone (SQ) redox intermediate needs to be destabilized in the protein to suppress its ability to trap electrons. This dissertation examines SQ suppression across a number of flavin systems for the purpose of better understanding the nature of SQ suppression within FBEB and elucidates potential mechanistic roles of SQ. The major achievement of this work is advancing the understanding of SQ suppression and its utility in flavoproteins with the capacity to bifurcate pairs of electrons. Much of these achievements are highlighted in Chapter 6. To contextualize these mechanistic studies, we examined the kinetic and thermodynamic properties of non-bifurcating flavoproteins (Chapters 2 and 3) as well as bifurcating flavoproteins (Chapters 4 and 5). Proteins were selected as models for SQ suppression with the aim of elucidating the role of an intermediate SQ in bifurcation. The chemical reactions of flavins and those mediated by flavoproteins play critical roles in the bioenergetics of all lifeforms, both aerobic and anaerobic. We highlight our findings in the context of electron bifurcation, the recently discovered third form of biological energy conservation. Bifurcating NADH-dependent ferredoxin-NADP+ oxidoreductase I (Nfn) and the non-bifurcating flavoproteins nitroreductase, NADH oxidase, and flavodoxin were studied by transient absorption spectroscopy to compare electron transfer rates and mechanisms in the picosecond range. Different mechanisms were found to dominate SQ decay in the different proteins, producing lifetimes ranging over 3 orders of magnitude. The presence of a short-lived SQ alone was found to be insufficient to infer bifurcating activity. We established a model wherein the short SQ lifetime in Nfn results from efficient electron propagation. Such mechanisms of SQ decay may be a general feature of redox active site ensembles able to carry out bifurcation. We also investigated the proposed bifurcating electron transfer flavoprotein (Etf) from Pyrobaculum aerophilum (Pae), a hyperthermophilic archaeon. Unlike other Etfs, we observed a stable and strong charge transfer band (λmax= 724 nm) for Pae’s Etf upon reduction by NADH. Using a series of reductive titrations to probe bounds for the reduction midpoint potential of the two flavins, we argue that the heterodimer alone could participate in a bifurcation mechanism

School, work, and equity: educational reform in Rwanda

This item was digitized by the Internet Archive

The relationship between primary schools and parents in a Tyneside County Borough.

The specific stimulus for the investigation was the recommendation of the Plowden Report of 1969 of a minimum programme of practical methods by which primary schools could involve parents more directly in the life of the school. However, because of the high degree of authority of the headteacher in matters relating to school policy it was considered that the implementation of a programme of innovation of this type would be to a large extent dependent on the initiative and goodwill of the individual headteacher. Accordingly, the research was focused upon forty-three primary headteachers in a Tyneside County Borough, representing all the primary schools of one Local Education Authority. Two measuring instruments were used in the research - an attitude scale designed for the research and a structured survey interview. The attitude scale was used to provide quantitative data about the attitudes of five principal categories of headteacher respondent and the interview to provide qualitative detail about attitudes to parental involvement with schools, feelings about the headteacher's role in this area, and information about contacts in current use by the schools in the survey sample. The combined evidence of the experimental attitude scale and the survey interviews, led to the conclusion that there was a relationship between the attitude of a headteacher to parental involvement and the type and frequency of contacts provided by a school, although in this survey this attitude appeared to be related to the age of the headteacher. A further analysis of the interview transcripts revealed possible attitudinal barriers to closer parental- involvement with primary schools and offered possible explanations for dislike of particular types of contact between schools and parents. These attitudes appeared to be related to a particular view of the respective roles of parents and teachers. The experimental attitude scale proved to be a reliable and valid measure of these attitudes, with a split half reliability co-efficient of .62 and when correlated with quantitative data obtained from the survey interviews, the degree of correlation was calculated to be .72

Change in Juvenile Offending Versatility Predicted by Individual, Familial, and Environmental Risks

Developmental and life-course criminology elucidate the developmental course and change of antisociality over time, considering that longitudinal trajectories differ. Specific relations between risks and different antisociality outcomes are emphasized. We assume that adolescents have different longitudinal trajectories considering the change of offending over time and that risks contribute variably to offending pathways. The current study is based on a German research project in which adolescents (N = 577) were interviewed in two German cities. Based on self-reported crime data, we utilized the slope values of offending versatility (OV) over time as outcome values in regression mixture models capturing the trends for participants over age and exhibiting two components of offending adolescents. We explored the contribution of different risks to OV, defining specific risk patterns: Acceptance of violence and peer delinquency have significant negative effects on the emergence of OV within the group of adolescents with decreasing OV. Acceptance of violence has a significant negative effect, and corporal punishment has a significant positive effect on the emergence of OV within the group of adolescents with increasing or rather stable OV. The results underline the relevance of the violence-related risk factor corporal punishment for the emergence of OV within the last-mentioned group